


we're not bruised (they're just party tattoos)

by kogane (cybersquatt)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drunkenness, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Sexuality Crisis, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 15:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11489355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybersquatt/pseuds/kogane
Summary: Excerpt:There's an itch under his skin, one that doesn't go away. One where it intensifies when he staring a little too long at Keith or just there, buzzing so lowly that he almost forgets it's there.An itch that he doesn't understand. But now, maybe the taste of beer in his mouth is the same taste of understanding.(Or maybe the taste of understanding is indescribable, invisible, layered over from what the red solo cup provides.)Lance is drunk, Keith cares, and there's a party (and don't trust Nyma with drinks).[Title from Dodie Clark's song,Party Tattoos]





	we're not bruised (they're just party tattoos)

**Author's Note:**

> this is the result of many allnighters and somehow the consequences of bi ensure made it into the mix umm
> 
> edit: there's hinted shallura but that was before I found out about allura's age!

i.

 

It's Rolo party.

And it's 11 pm, all too late in Lance's opinion -- an unpopular opinion nonetheless.

People are gathered in the living room and dining room. Music plays loudly as people dance, the room hot and the air is filled with an energetic vibe. Lance wants to take his jacket off but Nyma is grabbing his sleeve, urging him to the table. The foldable table holds snacks and drinks (mostly beer) and Shiro is already there, chatting with Allura.

Lance wonders how Allura was able to get pass her Uncle Coran and her dad to get to the party. People are surrounding the table, conversations all around him and Lance wants to join in one but

Nyma is shoving a red cup in his hand, bringing his attention to her.

"Can you hold your liquor?" She asks with a smirk.

A "Yes" is at the tip of his tongue, an instinctive reply. Then he questions himself, does he? There's a part telling himself to not, the logical side; a strong voice that tells him he'll regret it in the morning. The other is urging him to drown it, enjoy the party, live. He won't be 17 forever.

In the end, he chooses the side that appeals the most.

ii.

 

Lance can't hold his liquor, he learns three -- three? -- hours later.

Nyma can hold her liquor, of course she can. She had a number of practices before, saying "Better now when I don't have any responsibilities."

His head feels like it's swimming with water warm, lazy strokes that he had done in the summer when the heat was unbearable. The taste of beer isn't his type but he still drinks. Lance is heading towards the hallway where the heat feels more bearable, the sweat on his forehead isn't acknowledged.

Lance isn't sure why he came, he barely knows Rolo; but Lance is pretty sure that nearly 40% of the people at the party doesn't know him either. Maybe he came for the same reason he downed that red solo cup.

He nearly trips on the little bump where the hallway starts, the overflowing of shoes and hanged jackets in the broken storage closet -- what the fuck? -- doesn't help him. He, somehow, regains his balance. His mind wonders now that he can hear himself think. Lance originally came with Hunk and Pidge but lost them after Nyma dragged him away. He can't find her either but Lance guesses Nyma is with her girlfriend, or maybe chatting with Rolo, he doesn't know.

What he does know is that Keith Kogane isn't the party type and yet he stands in front of him. Lance merely runs his eyes over Keith's appearance. His arms are crossed -- is it like his signature pose or something? -- and wearing a gray t-shirt and ripped skinny jeans. Lance distantly thinks that it's isn't Keith's usual style.

At least it's a good style, unlike that God awful  _mullet_.

Keith glances at him. Raising an eyebrow after taking in his appearance, Keith simply asks, "Are you drunk?"

Lance can't make out what tone he used, the music drowning out every word til it was stripped bare. His jacket is tied around his waist, he took it off finally when he was in the mess of the living room. Lance mulls over the question, brain scattered

"Mm, maybe?" Lance says, not sure if Keith can hear him; the words felt too quiet in the loud area.

Lance feels like sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor but he also wants to slide closer to Keith. Lance blames the beer for the latter.

Maybe Lance does slide down a bit. Keith grabs a hold of his shoulder before Lance could lower any further, helping him stand up straight again. Lance feels slightly swaying but off, as if he was moving out of rhythm with the music blasting out the stereos.

"Yeah," Keith draws out, bringing Lance's attention onto him (as if it wasn't already), "you aren't going to be able to look after yourself."

Lance doesn't protest, barely paying attention to his words but rather staring absentmindedly at his face. There's a question that Keith asks; it's stripped bare like all words and Lance answers with a "yes" before he even comprehends the question in the air.

His mind was a jumble of words that Lance isn't going to bother figuring out and quite likes the way Keith's hand is wrapped around his arm, leading him somewhere.

He almost trips at the stairs, lucky grabbing ahold of the railing before he could fall. They trek through the crowded stairs where almost all are either, making out or waiting for someone to make out with. He can hear someone whistle as him and Keith enter in one the empty looking rooms.

The music drowns out as the door shuts and the fairy lights hang idly in the room.

iii.

 

Lance immediately sits on the couch.

He instantly feels more steady, seeming to only need a solid weight under him. Lance curls up to the arm of the couch, hearing the springs working to accommodate his weight in comfort. Keith joins him a moment later, the couch shifting. Lance whines lightly before moving in a position where he's more comfortable.

The window behind is open, the cold wind of the fall blowing in. The sudden transition from the warm rooms of the partying to the chilly breeze of an abandoned room makes Lance shiver. The buzzing of conversations are filtered to pale murmuring from below and out the door.

Lance feels his bones sinking into the cushion comfortably, feeling the outline of the throw pillow he's sitting against. He breathes in deeply, closing his eyes but feeling not at all tired. If anything, restless energy runs in his veins.

Suddenly, Keith springs up to his feet, removing Lance from his peaceful state.

"What the hell man?" Lance grumbles, rubbing his eye.

Keith walks to the desk across the room and grabs one of the folded blankets on the surface, bringing it to the couch. "The hell is being cold  _man._ " Keith retorts, wrapping himself up.

Lance lightly kicks Keith's ankle when he's near enough. He recalls how his  _Mamá_ told him to wear his jacket, her voice firm and a tone of scolding as he sat in the family car shivering when the weather was colder than he thought. He shivers in the present and thinks how his  _Mamá_ would react now; jacketless and cold and  _drunk_.  _God_ , she would kick his ass.

Not drunk. No, not drunk but... tipsy.

Tipsy enough to accept sharing a blanket with  _Keith Kogane_ of all people when he notices Lance's shivering. On the tip of his tongue, Lance wants to say that he has a jacket wrapped around his waist, the same one his  _Mamá_ wrapped around him in the family car. But the words are left unsaid as the furry blanket feels light -- but  _not --_ on his shoulders.

"Who even let you drink?" Keith muses aloud, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smirk.

"Nyma," Lance answers automatically, loose lips.

Keith snorts, startlingly Lance. "Sorry, sorry," Keith says, sounding very not sorry, "It's just why would you trust anything Nyma gives you to be safe?"

Lance looks Keith, who seems actually curious, "Why wouldn't I?"

"Didn't she put viagra in your water bottle once?"

A pause.

"...I see your point."

They both break into giggles before calming down. The blanket isn't wide enough for the boys to have any space between them. Their knees bump together, a few tense moments before they relax, their knees resting against each other. Lance doesn't let his eyes close this time, the soft light provided by the moon in the late night light up the room as the fairy lights are all too dim.

The room has a pale dark blue lightening that reminds Lance of the space he dreams of exploring. He can hear Keith's breathing, deep and relaxed. His eye lidded and Lance notices the mixture of colors: purple, gray, maybe a shade of gold hidden....

iv.

 

Lance doesn't hate Keith despite what his interactions towards him might say.

There's always this feeling that Lance doesn't understand towards him, fondness that he feels towards his friends like Hunk and Pidge but not quite.

He likes Keith's eyes, even in the dark where he can only pick out the grayness of the void that he feels like he's being sucked into -- a blackhole. Lance likes Keith's hands as they are bigger than his while Keith's inches shorter in height. He likes his stubbornness even when it lands them in detention and....

Lance likes Keith. He likes Keith like how he likes his friends but not quite.

There's an itch under his skin, one that doesn't go away. One where it intensifies when he staring a little too long at Keith or just there, buzzing so lowly that he almost forgets it's there.

An itch that he doesn't understand. But now, maybe the taste of beer in his mouth is the same taste of understanding.

(Or maybe the taste of understanding is indescribable, invisible, layered over from what the red solo cup provides.)

vi.

 

The taste is almost as unwanted as the taste of beer.

Lance doesn't know everything about himself. God, Hunk knows more about Lance than Lance himself.

But he knows that the itch, an urge if you will _,_  is Keith Kogane, who sits in front of him with dark purple eyes in the pale moonlight, a reflection of the space Lance wants so badly to explore.

An exploration with no idea what entails, an exploration into the depths of the unknown and  _out of the world._  A raw feeling, so different to the feeling of wanting to explore space in theory. No, this isn't an  _in theory_  situation anymore.

Keith is so  _close_  and Lance is so  _confused._

The overwhelming taste of beer entails loose lips. The tip of his tongue is a collection of words and one line slips out, one line out of a thousand.

vii.

 

"I want to kiss you." The words were almost a contrast to earlier, too loud but far from stripped bare, tone soft and...  _and...._

It isn't the exact words he said, Lance thinks as the words were lost in translation from tongue to mind -- left with the simplicity of it.

Keith's eyes are no longer lidded but wide and looking at Lance, eyes riddled with a look that Lance cannot comprehend. When Keith replies, Lance doesn't know how to answer (he doesn't know a lot of things when it comes to tonight).

"Why aren't you?" Words in an equal tone of soft but a sense of daring behind them.

Lance wonders if Keith can see the gears in his head turning. Lance knows what's stopping him but  _doesn't._ It's like how someone asks how you know what one word means and you can't explain, you just  _know._

It's like that.

But when Keith asks it, something in Lance twists and Lance thinks and he knows.

How does one explain that he loves to kiss, date girls, that he's attracted to girls but also attracted to  _Keith,_ a  _boy?_ A boy with intense eyes and hands bigger than his despite being a few inches shorter than Lance. A boy with not so better fashion style than hair style and a sharp chin like his own.

Lance has always been scared to questions directed towards himself and he doesn't want to question why Keith is so different to all the girls. Why Lance wants  _Keith Kogane_  of all people.

(But Keith isn't Keith Kogane, the top student of the year without trying, the short temper rival that relies on impulses than anything else because he has a  _feeling_ , Keith Kogane who one-ups Lance in everything except socially. Keith Kogane isn't Keith, the guy who looks after Lance when he is in no condition to look after himself, who shares a blanket with him because he's cold, Keith who speaks in a soft tone to Lance when Lance says he wants to  _kiss him._

Keith isn't what Lance thought he was. Not what he thinks he is. Keith isn't an idea, an  _in theory._ )

"Because... "  _Because,_  he thinks desperately as he feels Keith's forehead against his,"I don't want to change anything."

It isn't the correct answer but it's the best one he can give -- on the tip of his tongue only one line slips out of a thousand and Lance doesn't know what it entails.

viii.

 

It's 3 am when the moonlight shines through the window.

Music booms from the outside that reach out towards the front and back yard. Music that doesn't quite reach the 3rd bedroom window. People lay in the grass, bottles lay beside them.

The buzzing of conversations starts to tone down to a pale murmuring. It's silent on the night of drinks and fun. The loudest sound that doesn't have a catchy beat to it is the engines of the cars starting up. The crowds start thinning out as the overflowing of shoes in the storage closet -- a storage  _closet_ \-- trips drunken strangers who giggle off their clumsiness.

Pidge and Hunk are past out on the couch, the night wasted away on red solo cups and phones to avoid unwanted conversations. Rolo and Nyma are in the backyard's chair, the cold cooling them down to a shiver. Allura at home, receiving a scolding as Shiro sits his car, driving home.

All that happens at 3 am, out of Lance's view ("Out of sight, out of mind." They said years ago).

It's 3 am when the silence joins the scene,

Lance doesn't question it ( _Dios_ , doesn't want to question anything right now and forever). Keith is close and words slip through those lips that Lance can't stop staring at.

Everything is soft in Lance's perspective. The weight of the confusion is still upon his shoulder, an itch, urge, that can buzz so low that he could forget about it but not in this moment. He can feel Keith lean in closer and closer  _and...._

There's a logical side of Lance's brain, thought process, voice vague, saying that he shouldn't, that he'll regret it in the morning but there's another side of him that says he won't be 17 forever, his logical side be damned.

He chooses the most appealing side.

ix.

 

It's 3 am when there's a touch of lips.

Brief, almost a brush. Fairy lights hang idly in a room that's mostly lit up by nature. Lance feels like he's drowning and can't tell if it's good or bad.

Their foreheads lean against each other, a quick breath of air they both need for their fast pace hearts beating to the same tempo (not off like earlier, not off but....).

Lance leans in eagerly again because Keith's lips are soft even if it hurts when their noses bump against each other. Keith's out of style hair tickles the bridge of his nose but ignores it for the firm pressing of  _Keith_. Lance welcomes the taste of something other than beer

All that happens at 3 am, in a house party where 40% of the guests don't know the owner.

x.

 

Morning light isn't as welcomed as the taste of Keith.

There's this moment after you wake up where you don't remember anything, a bittersweet moment of oblivion of the pressing matters the day brings.

That moment felt prolonged for Lance, the morning after.

When it ends, he recalls a memory of Keith handing his a water bottle to drink or "he'll regret it in the morning."

He'll thank him later as his hangover is reduced to a somewhat light throbbing.

He doesn't want to think about what went down last night, running a hand down his face to rid the sleep wrinkles, joints cracking from sleeping on a couch.

He thinks of how his  _Mamá_ has a lecture waiting on her tongue as she waits for the front door to open, he thinks of where Pidge and Hunk might be, he thinks how uncomfortable the couch was to sleep but how soft but chapped Keith's lips were.

Lance groans lightly, not able to rid to thoughts of the way Keith felt against him. They didn't do anything  _inappropriate_ ; Keith stopping them to remind Lance that he was still partially drunk (a good man). Lance wouldn't want to do  _it_  either way; his sexuality a mess and he can't promise anything afterward (he could never do meaningless sex to Keith).

Lance looks at Keith, who's still asleep on the couch, curled up in the fuzzy blanket they shared during the night. Lance can't help but think what could happen after this.

They could never speak again after this, part ways after High School. Continue their lives as if last night never happened, call it an impulse that shouldn't have happened. Lance could go back to interacting with guys without second guessing if they're another Keith, another situation of not-so-straight feelings.

But they could  _not_.

There's a potential at being  _together._  Potential to start something, give in the urge even when it's only buzzing. For Keith to understand that Lance is both but _not_ ; neither straight nor gay. (Is there a word? Could there be a label? Is there such a thing as neither but both _?_ ) They could go on dates, have another last night.

They could.

Lance leaves, heading home with hopeful thoughts in exploring the unknown.


End file.
